Help Good and Family Overcome Health and Financial Struggles

On October 24th, Good started to experience pain in his knee. Less than 2 days later, he was immobile with crippling pain in his leg. Since that time, he's been out of work and unable to take care of his own basic needs.

After several urgent care visits, emergency room visits, primary care visits, and every test under the sun, he still had no answers and the pain has now spread to both legs, ankles, feet, his back, and his neck. With the pain beyond what he could handle, our lives had to adjust.

He can no longer work, go upstairs to bed, or even use his crutches to get to the bathroom. Our family has done the best we can to give him a dignified, comfortable space on the couch, and we have learned that even in these painful and bleak times, when the pain isn't overwhelming, he will still yell dad jokes through the house and support his family as best as he can as the official 'Couch Coach'. Through all of this, he's still putting out positive vibes, and humor, even when literally writhing in pain. His ability to lift other's spirits is unmatched, but his own spirit is struggling with the burden of not being able to support his family in all the ways he is used to.

Now, after these final rounds of tests and a most likely diagnosis of Acute Reactive Arthritis, he has been told that his condition could last several months or up to a year, and the only treatment is to do the best they can with his pain management and expect a need for physical therapy at the end of his recovery in order to be able to walk again.

What this means now for our family is that ArtLocs is the only income and that my ability to work all my typical hours is now limited in order to also meet the responsibilities and provide kid/school/activities on my own. It means I'm doing all the cooking, and with the meds he needs to manage the pain, it is sending his sugars sky high. His diabetes can't handle that. So, my very bad cooking needs to become very good low-to-no carb/sugar cooking.

Needless to say, all these factors are making the challenges of supporting him and my family feel insurmountable. So, I'm asking for help.

We're blessed to have amazing health insurance to help with those costs, but we're in need of financial assistance to cover the complete loss of his income and the extreme cutting back of mine. Unfortunately, since he works for a small business, short-term disability isn't an option. He's applied for other assistance, some that we don't qualify for, and others that are still in review, nothing has been approved yet.

Other ways you can help us are with low to no-carb or sugar meals, gift certificates to stores to help fill in the material gaps.

And any other support, rides, playdates... anything to help our family get through this and still feel like we are a family doing family things.

Even if you're unable to assist at this time, please share this gofundme in hopes that spreading the word.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts :)